Blog Exercises: Make Post Titles Matter

Post titles are the titles of the articles you publish on your site. They represent the subject matter of the article.

Newspapers and magazines are famous for their sensationalism when it comes to titles, lurking in readers with “Sexy Siren Stabs Six.”

Or they include number counts to impress. “101 Best Ways to Cook a Turkey” when you need only one. Maybe the solution to all your cooking problems might be within the overwhelming list, but you must buy the whole magazine to dig through the entire list to find that one solution.

When someone searches within a search engine, the post title is the first thing they see in the results. As a reader skims the content on your site, the title jumps out at them, too. If the title matches the purpose of their search, they click. Even if the answer is in the article, if it isn’t suggested by the title, they won’t click. The title must meet their expectations of success in finding the answer there.

Do your post titles really sum up the content within?

Some newspapers and magazines have an editorial guidelines that states article titles must be approximately four words. Others are not as strict. This guideline is based upon the design of the publication and web designs are not exempt. Some WordPress Themes will actually break if the post title is longer than one line, causing the title to look odd. Many modern Themes take two to three lines in the post title into account. It is still something to consider as you review and edit your post titles to make them catchy, to the point, and reflective of the content within.

Here are some common post titles that don’t work.

How are you today?

March 21, 2012

I need help

Today Happened

I Think I’ll Blog Today

Who cares

I could go on but I know you are familiar with these. Stop it. These are not helpful titles.

Go through your post titles and find the ones you played games with or titles that leave the reader clueless as to the topic.